An English Valentine

Hello crafty people! I love long cards and they are so difficult to find in the stores anymore. It seems every funny card that I ever loved and saved was a long length card. There is just something unique and different about them. I thought this shape would be interesting to make into a Valentine, so I gave it a go.  I made this card using three different sets of Artistic Outpost Stamps: London Underground, French Flight, and Loverly London. Their stamps really coordinate well together. Don't forget about their Monthly Referral Challenge for "shades of red". There is an awesome prize package giveaway that awaits a winner (yummy AO stamps and Tim goodies)!

I have a friend across the pond (you know who you are) that I am sending this very English Valentine to. I hope she likes it. I am also submitting this to the Sunday Stamper challenge for "hearts", and the monthly challenge at Inspiration Journal for "put a heart on it". Shelly Hickox, a DT member for Inspiration Journal  has a tag with a similar kind of balloon on it, but I promise I didn't blog-lift her idea. Great minds think alike sometimes when they have awesome stamps to use!!!

I stamped the English flag image with Pumice Stone Distress Ink onto vellum, so the image would not be too dark for coloring, and the ink underneath would dissipate with water, as seen in the next photo.

I used watercolor pencils to color in the image. I dried it with a heat gun, and cut it out in the shape of a heart, then gave it an edge inking with Gathered Twigs.

I stamped more images with Archival Ink onto kraft paper, and cut those out (leaving out the ropes on the balloon man). All the edges were inked with Gathered Twigs.

I cut a 7 1/2  by 8 1/4 inch piece of Tim's lined Kraft Resist Paper (love this stuff). I inked it with Tumbled Glass and Broken China Distress Inks. I wiped off the ink from the embossed resist images with a moist towelette. Then I folded the paper in half long ways, and inked the edges with Gathered Twigs.

I attached the flag heart to the doily with the tiny attacher. I threaded the wire into the balloon basket and then into the doily and secured it.  I adhered the images onto the card.

I stamped the Cheerio sentiment onto kraft paper with Festive Berries Distress Ink and heat embossed it with Fired Brick Distress Embossing Powder. I cut that out and adhered it to the card. Then I stamped the other sentiment directly onto the card using Archival Ink in Jet Black. Finally, I used a white pen and Christmas Red Stickles to embellish a few of the  images.

Supplies:
Wilton: Foil Heart Doily
DMD Industries: Black Rafia Wrapped Wire
From My Stash: vellum scrap

Kraft Resist Paper Stash	Loverly London Stamp Set	London Underground Stamp Set	French Flight Stamp Set	Fired Brick Distress Embossing Powder	Watercolor Pencils
Tumbled Glass Distress Ink	Fall 2011 Limited Edition Distress Ink Trio	Ink Blending Tool	Christmas Red Stickles	Winter 2011 Distress Ink Pack	Jet Black Archival Ink
Broken china - Distress ink	Uni-ball pen - White	Mini Mister	Tiny Attacher - Idea-ology	Pumice Stone Distress Ink

I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!